- Pronouns
- He/Him
...and my previous drafts have 5 Tib dice, too.
Brain fart, I guess?
Attempting to Fulfill the Plan: GDI Edition
Brain fart, I guess?
CarterQuest Results Q3 2055
- Pronouns
- He/Him
CarterQuest Results Q3 2055
Orbital Scan - Luna (Complete)
Over the course of months, the lone Herschell probe, joined by two siblings on the last stretch of the mission, orbited the moon in low orbit, doing hundreds of scanning bursts every second, which slowly coalesced into an updated picture of the moon surface. Much of it was already known, but the mission served as a good test for SCEDs scan methods and the results are satisfactory. Terabytes of data and billions of data points, all run though SCED supercomputers and given to geologists to make sense of.
The moon is, unsurprisingly, scarred with craters. Lack of atmosphere and natural weathering forces make its surface unchanging in the grand scheme of things. The surface regolith is made up, among others, of Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, Calcium, Aluminium and Magnesium in descending amounts.
One thing that was not clear before but is now, thanks to the new data, is the presence of water on the moon. Without a magnetic field light elements are scrubbed off the surface by solar radiation and hydrogen is not found in the upper layers of the lunar surface even in trace amounts. But the new scans showed clear lines of hydrogen in the spectrometer data in deep craters at the southern pole, their insides eternally hidden from the sun's light. The exact amount of water present will need to be examined closer via surface sampling to determine if it is present in industrial quantities.
Automated Assembly Line (Phase 4/7) 312/200
The Assembly Line has been further expanded with a set of heavy lifting machines, capable of moving even the heaviest of loads vertically. With that the line is nearly complete, requiring only the installation of an industrial EVA unit to better manage the assembly process. After that all that could be done to increase productivity may be the refit of some of the older robot models with higher end ones.
Reinforce Herschel-Luna - 2 Hermes Probes 72
The last two scan probes have been launched and put into the moon orbit, as required of the treasuries mandate, hopefully proving SCED is an organisation that can be relied upon.
Launch Pardus(manned moon landing) (91, 14, 60, 39)
The Pardus mission, unofficially dubbed 'The Second First Moon Landing' went ahead without many issues. A problem with the landing software meant they had to do another orbit before they could attempt a landing. By that point, their landing fuel reserves were low and touch down was rougher than expected, damaging one of the landing gears. After three weeks of sample gathering, Pardus returned, the launch going ahead without issues. The damaged landing gear could not be retracted, making atmospheric entry too dangerous. Pardus docked with the Enterprise station, where the samples were offloaded to be sent down with the next supply run. Overall SCED considers the mission a full success, with media and public attention higher than expected.
Dedicated Moon landing Omake is in the works.
LRC-Development 90/75
Development on the LRC has been completed, resulting in a slightly different model than proposed. The radio dish now takes up a far larger amount of both volume and mass of the launch configuration, but has increased sensitivity and theoretical range.
Radio-Thermal-Generator Module Development 63/50
The technology to produce energy via a basic heat exchanger is no stranger to GDI and now it has been added to SCEDs modular arsenal in three sizes to cover all possible needs, including producing power for larger installations in places where solar might not be an option.
Ion Drive Module Development 137/125
An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. While used by GDI for years now to keep the Initiatives extensive array of satellites on their orbital paths, it was important for Shen to have the engines available as part of SCEDs modular module supply.
Relocate Administration 224/150
As the final piece of the relocating to Aldrin, the computers in the old building have been scrubbed by OpsSec and every piece of paper filed, secured and moved to the new site. Deconstruction of the old facilities is scheduled soon to make way for new port expansions.
Prepare for Budget Infusion 221/150
The moment SCED admin told the Treasury to please not give them more money will remain in the division's mind for the foreseeable future. But for now SCED actually knows how to work with 5 times their annual budget, having a number of expensive projects in the planning stage that will rapidly increase SCEDs industrial capacity.
Expand RnD Staff 5/5C 115/150
Expanding the RnD teams has been repeatedly met with the small hiring pool as the schooling system is still spooling up the production of graduates and the ones that enter the workforce are often absorbed by the Treasury or GDI's other research programs.
As announced CarterQuest will be taking a small break. In the meantime please participate in AdiLanos StarboundQuest.
Orbital Scan - Luna (Complete)
Over the course of months, the lone Herschell probe, joined by two siblings on the last stretch of the mission, orbited the moon in low orbit, doing hundreds of scanning bursts every second, which slowly coalesced into an updated picture of the moon surface. Much of it was already known, but the mission served as a good test for SCEDs scan methods and the results are satisfactory. Terabytes of data and billions of data points, all run though SCED supercomputers and given to geologists to make sense of.
The moon is, unsurprisingly, scarred with craters. Lack of atmosphere and natural weathering forces make its surface unchanging in the grand scheme of things. The surface regolith is made up, among others, of Oxygen, Silicon, Iron, Calcium, Aluminium and Magnesium in descending amounts.
One thing that was not clear before but is now, thanks to the new data, is the presence of water on the moon. Without a magnetic field light elements are scrubbed off the surface by solar radiation and hydrogen is not found in the upper layers of the lunar surface even in trace amounts. But the new scans showed clear lines of hydrogen in the spectrometer data in deep craters at the southern pole, their insides eternally hidden from the sun's light. The exact amount of water present will need to be examined closer via surface sampling to determine if it is present in industrial quantities.
Automated Assembly Line (Phase 4/7) 312/200
The Assembly Line has been further expanded with a set of heavy lifting machines, capable of moving even the heaviest of loads vertically. With that the line is nearly complete, requiring only the installation of an industrial EVA unit to better manage the assembly process. After that all that could be done to increase productivity may be the refit of some of the older robot models with higher end ones.
Reinforce Herschel-Luna - 2 Hermes Probes 72
The last two scan probes have been launched and put into the moon orbit, as required of the treasuries mandate, hopefully proving SCED is an organisation that can be relied upon.
Launch Pardus(manned moon landing) (91, 14, 60, 39)
The Pardus mission, unofficially dubbed 'The Second First Moon Landing' went ahead without many issues. A problem with the landing software meant they had to do another orbit before they could attempt a landing. By that point, their landing fuel reserves were low and touch down was rougher than expected, damaging one of the landing gears. After three weeks of sample gathering, Pardus returned, the launch going ahead without issues. The damaged landing gear could not be retracted, making atmospheric entry too dangerous. Pardus docked with the Enterprise station, where the samples were offloaded to be sent down with the next supply run. Overall SCED considers the mission a full success, with media and public attention higher than expected.
Dedicated Moon landing Omake is in the works.
LRC-Development 90/75
Development on the LRC has been completed, resulting in a slightly different model than proposed. The radio dish now takes up a far larger amount of both volume and mass of the launch configuration, but has increased sensitivity and theoretical range.
Radio-Thermal-Generator Module Development 63/50
The technology to produce energy via a basic heat exchanger is no stranger to GDI and now it has been added to SCEDs modular arsenal in three sizes to cover all possible needs, including producing power for larger installations in places where solar might not be an option.
Ion Drive Module Development 137/125
An ion thruster, ion drive, or ion engine is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion. While used by GDI for years now to keep the Initiatives extensive array of satellites on their orbital paths, it was important for Shen to have the engines available as part of SCEDs modular module supply.
Relocate Administration 224/150
As the final piece of the relocating to Aldrin, the computers in the old building have been scrubbed by OpsSec and every piece of paper filed, secured and moved to the new site. Deconstruction of the old facilities is scheduled soon to make way for new port expansions.
Prepare for Budget Infusion 221/150
The moment SCED admin told the Treasury to please not give them more money will remain in the division's mind for the foreseeable future. But for now SCED actually knows how to work with 5 times their annual budget, having a number of expensive projects in the planning stage that will rapidly increase SCEDs industrial capacity.
Expand RnD Staff 5/5C 115/150
Expanding the RnD teams has been repeatedly met with the small hiring pool as the schooling system is still spooling up the production of graduates and the ones that enter the workforce are often absorbed by the Treasury or GDI's other research programs.
As announced CarterQuest will be taking a small break. In the meantime please participate in AdiLanos StarboundQuest.
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Whitey on the moon omake incoming!
- Location
- alphen aan den rijn
that moonlanding trip was a trip and a halve.
extra trip around the moon, low fuel rough landing.
no earth orbit landings
good thing we build a fairly big space station they could dock with for a back up plan.
extra trip around the moon, low fuel rough landing.
no earth orbit landings
good thing we build a fairly big space station they could dock with for a back up plan.
- Location
- Israel
A hair dye called Titanic, I heard of, but it's a crappy one.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Yeah, but that doesn't change the basic calculus. Most other +Capital Goods projects only give us about +2 Capital Goods for about 200 to 250-ish dice progress. North Boston gives us +16 for 1200 dice progress. North Boston is also more energy-efficient than many other such projects, and labor-efficient (which isn't relevant now but may be in several years' time). Aaaaand cheaper in resources per die.
So we can put off North Boston, do other projects, and when the smoke clears we've spent considerably more dice and resources, and we're probably behind on energy.
Or we can exploit the expanded planning apparatus and go halfsies, in which case we get half the refits done inefficiently, then shrug awkwardly and do North Boston anyway for the other half.
Or we can just start with North Boston, doing other Light Industry Capital Goods projects when and as specifically necessary to fill immediate needs, and get the big chunk of Capital Goods within a year or so in the most efficient manner possible.
I don't feel like there's a good way to avoid the need for North Boston's Phase 4 expansion if we actually intend to do the War Factory Refit project.
Dunno, but I'm pretty sure it's been a long time.
We can't do the Governor yards without Capital Goods anyway, and we don't know how much Capital Goods we need per yard. And finishing the Yellow Zone light industry project in 2055Q4 ate up all the surplus of Capital Goods we have left.
If we're seriously commited to completing the Governor yards, we need more Capital Goods surplus from somewhere with high enough certainty to not be worried about a project failure. Otherwise we'll have to do some weird fuckery like half-building two yards in turn T and then completing each of them as sufficient Capital Goods surplus comes online in following turns T+1 and on.
So if you're serious about wanting at least one Governor yard building ships by the end of turn 2056Q1, then making some kind of arrangement such that at least one +Capital Goods project succeeds that turn is pretty much mandatory.
Again, there's just no real point in spending Infrastructure dice on Rail Links instead of Tidal Power right now. It probably doesn't really benefit us until Heavy Rolling Stock completes, and we can use the resources elsewhere.
Not a great move here. Perennials needs to finish this turn for us to get the full Food boost in time for the end of the current Four Year Plan. Meanwhile, there's no benefit to starting Entari Deployment early if it still finishes at the same time. If you're going to swap out a die you should swap out State Operated Breweries and leave two dice on Perennials. People won't love it that the brewery project stalled for a turn, but with the election just past this is a good time to make unpopular short-term sacrifices for long-term gain.
Well, let no one accuse you of not wanting to hammer that Red Zone containment.
It would be, but the show was last taken off the air after a guy we strongly suspect was Kane wearing a wig and Groucho glasses tried to enter a what we now strongly suspect was a fork of LEGION piloting a chibi Avatar. Nobody could figure out how all the weapons it ripped off the other battlebots were even compatible, but it got to be a bit too much and kind of ruined it for everyone else.
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@Ithillid if you don't mind me asking, what is the 'endgame' for consumer goods? Seeming that we are a comparative handful of goods away from approaching surplus?
I ask this because unlike food or to a smaller extent housing there isn't really a maximum level of consumer goods that people desire. People will always want a second or third car...etc
Especially considering the quantity of consumer goods we seem to be producing atm. is this indicator going to change from the base number to a more 'aspirational' target. Like at the moment it feels like we're only a little above third world levels. Not all people have cars, barely anyone has clothing diversity food variety beyond the base essentials is barely meeting demand. So on so forth.
This has only occurred to me as we've been approaching our targets and in my mind I've been going 'ah, soon building consumer goods factories will be a thing of the past'. And was wondering if that's a reasonable way of seeing things or if we should expect that consumer demand will be a moving target as demand continuously moves beyond supply.
I ask this because unlike food or to a smaller extent housing there isn't really a maximum level of consumer goods that people desire. People will always want a second or third car...etc
Especially considering the quantity of consumer goods we seem to be producing atm. is this indicator going to change from the base number to a more 'aspirational' target. Like at the moment it feels like we're only a little above third world levels. Not all people have cars, barely anyone has clothing diversity food variety beyond the base essentials is barely meeting demand. So on so forth.
This has only occurred to me as we've been approaching our targets and in my mind I've been going 'ah, soon building consumer goods factories will be a thing of the past'. And was wondering if that's a reasonable way of seeing things or if we should expect that consumer demand will be a moving target as demand continuously moves beyond supply.
If we get the consumer goods indicator up to zero, that's just the barest equilibrium where stuff is flying off the shelves within like 48 hours of it getting put out, but at least there's no longer a 6-month backorder on everything. It'll probably stick at zero for a loooong time as we keep pouring more and more consumer goods into the economy, especially if the left-leaning Parliament and left-leaning Treasury team up to give the average worker an even bigger paycheck - they need stuff to spend all that money on. Plus we'll need to supply more and more Yellow Zoners with a higher and higher standard of living as we resume expansions and economic development plus population evacuations there too.
I don't think consumer goods production will ever be a thing of the past, just because we got an indicator up to zero doesn't mean that we're remotely close to running out of uses for more.
I don't think consumer goods production will ever be a thing of the past, just because we got an indicator up to zero doesn't mean that we're remotely close to running out of uses for more.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
What I think hitting zero means is that we can take a breath and stop taking choices specifically for the Consumer Goods output so much. Projects like Blue Zone Light Industry or Virtual Reality Arcades that produce glorious consoom but cost precious Capital Goods become much less tempting. Outright ignoring consumer goods will probably still get us in trouble and we should aim for something like, dunno, having at least one meaningful CONSOOM project complete per quarter or something... But overall, we'll be able to relax a little and treat Consumer Goods the way we treat, say, Logistics: something it's nice to have more of but where we feel like we can get by with prioritizing other things (like Capital Goods and Energy) higher.
- Location
- The Underdark
Zero on any of your scales typically represents "enough"
Zero food: You can supply everyone with a balanced diet of 2k to 2.5k kilo-calories per day.
Zero consumer goods: You have enough production that you can order something and get it delivered in a few days, and there might be some stuff on the shelves.
Zero Logistics: You have the capacity, barely, to move what needs to be moved, but anything above that is not happening.
Zero is not good. Zero is the minimum to not have major problems.
Zero food: You can supply everyone with a balanced diet of 2k to 2.5k kilo-calories per day.
Zero consumer goods: You have enough production that you can order something and get it delivered in a few days, and there might be some stuff on the shelves.
Zero Logistics: You have the capacity, barely, to move what needs to be moved, but anything above that is not happening.
Zero is not good. Zero is the minimum to not have major problems.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Plus, Green Zones know exactly who's to thank for their sudden economic rebirth. And it ain't Nod.
As for saving a lotta the Yellow zones, I'll be honest- I don't think it's possible, in terms of cost. Look at the map here:
Derp, for this I wrote the unofficial intro. Now I am sad.
Also Zone (Outdated 2050-ish) Map for informational purposes.
That's a lotta territory we'd have to pull people from. A LOT. And we'd have to deal with a lotta those people are Nod supporters, meaning we need to do security checks, less the rat fucks in IF use the resulting carnage against us.
By all means, try to save as many as we can, but honestly, don't expect miracles.
- Location
- barking
I am sure some nod will use the they are only helping you for their own benefit to trick some people into thinking nod are the ones who truly care (also was it ever stated in cannon what kanes goals were before he left with the aliens)
So I crunched some numbers on the discord last night and I came up with two plans. One to maximize our military spending-there's no point to that plan but to spend as much as I can on the military within reason. It's 200 R in the armed forces. The other plan is a more sensible 'refit everything' plan that spends 10 dice on three refit projects to one-turn all of them and get us back in Red Zone Fighting Fit. Oh, and then there's the actual plan I want to put forward, which is a 5 military dice only plan, and puts free dice to work on things like LCI, HI and agriculture.
- Location
- USA
I would point out that a lot of the follow up actions are unknown as to cost and we are getting a fairly major action overhaul. Also I do feel like most (but not all) of our free dice should be on Mil since we are behind the ball there but have basically made up ground in the rest of the categories (outside of cap goods and cons goods and even cons good is no longer the major problem it was, currently a moderate problem and one we should keep on rolling between agri and services and some LCI).
At a min 5 mil dice on non marv projects to help play catch up and 3 on marv to expand our control of the world (thus reducing NOD control and recruit pool) and apply further mitigation as well as securing important sites.
- Location
- Mobile, Alabama
I have a question for dice crunchers. Once we catch up on mil tech? Would alternating military and MARV construction be worth IE 5 military dice and 3 MARV. Then 5 MARV and 3 military?
- Location
- colombia
well,you have to remember that there is a free market on operation and there is grants,plus the market socialist party
as things become more stable,i would assume more and more of consumer goods demand will be meet by the private market instead of us,leaving us to deal with the consumer demand in places where market cant reach (yellow zones)
but there is no end to the demand to consumer goods by their very nature (luxury/commodity)
there is always new clothes designs,new videogames,new music,new books etc
We are NOT behind the ball in military anymore, I have crunched the numbers. In the first 4 year plan, we used 53 Military Dice, and in the second 4 year plan to date we've used 52. In the first 4-year plan, we spent 585 resources on the military. In the second plan to date, we've spent 750 resources, and are rapidly closing in on 21% of all spending for the plan being military. We are closing in on Full War Status military spending, and while we're not in big danger of overheating the economy, it might be wise to moderate our spending and work on other sectors with our free dice-like say, our agriculture backlog, or our megaprojects, or getting our Tiberium Processing upgrades when they come.
That there is demand for new consumer goods does not mean we need to build new factories.
What we are building is not 'factories with specific products'. Specific product types? Sure, but not specific products.
What we are building is 'consumer good production capacity'. So a new videogame comes out, or a different clothing style becomes popular. The top level of the Treasury does not need to care because a dozen or more layers of bureaucracy lower is where the decisions are made as to what clothing factory produces which clothes, or which servers will be dedicated to which games.
If a rating drops, it's because there's an actual increased demand for something, not because there's a changed demand for it.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I'm not sure what you mean? If we didn't need to upgrade the military for a turn, we could use all our military dice for MARVs. But we could just as easily do a bunch of Steel Talon projects instead. There's no ideal die ratio between MARV and military dice; whatever we can afford we can do.
But we are in a war. We're in a constant unending global conflict, and NOD seems to have recovered from the mess of the 3rd war. If nothing else, we can't do more Yellow Zone Tiberium Harvesting or continue to build the Chicago Planned City without fighting NOD every step of the way. Never mind future ambitions like evacuating hundreds of millions of people into orbit. Our push to support people in the Yellow Zones, do Glacier Mining, reach out to the Forgotten etc. all stretch GDI's military more and more past what was asked of them pre-3rd war. And the more we ask of the military, the more funding they need in turn to support our efforts. Military Confidence doesn't stop at "Decent", it can go higher, and we're going to need those higher levels if we're going to continue to fight back Tiberium and provide aid and welfare to people across the globe.
- Location
- USA
QM still had us behind the ball on mil and are you including MARV dice in those numbers? As it is the 1st 4 year plan we underfunded the mil department so saying that the dice we used there is the total we should aim for is off. As it is NOD is starting to deploy new prototype weapons and we are still working on initial factory rollouts to modernize our forces and have not pushed forward with new weapon systems nearly as much as NOD has.
As for Tiberium processing we have a large space between current income and cap, and that space only grew larger this past turn since planned cities also increase our processing cap. We gained +10 Income but also increased cap by 50 and phase 3 of chicago should see a larger cap increase. In addition we have 2 more planned cities we can start and a 3rd we will get access to once labor is lower. We have not ignored Tiberium processing (and we did Sarlaand in part for the processing cap increase). As for project backlog, we will always have more projects, more important we should look at what resources we need more of know and in the future- and for that food is at a comfortable surplus compared to other categories.
Also, keep in mind that the dice and resource numbers are not all there is to it with military readiness.
Just because we spent a lot of dice recently doesn't mean the military has any of the stuff we've put in ready. It takes time to get shit ready for deployment and build up proper numbers of new equipment and assets.
Just building the factories=/=suddenly GDI military is all equipped. It'll take at least a year for full rollout of materials. And we've been behind on funding the military proper for a good long while. It'll take a lot of time for the military to catch up to canon GDI military strength even after we spend more dice than they had.
Just because we spent a lot of dice recently doesn't mean the military has any of the stuff we've put in ready. It takes time to get shit ready for deployment and build up proper numbers of new equipment and assets.
Just building the factories=/=suddenly GDI military is all equipped. It'll take at least a year for full rollout of materials. And we've been behind on funding the military proper for a good long while. It'll take a lot of time for the military to catch up to canon GDI military strength even after we spend more dice than they had.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To add, were were told on the discord that OTL GDI spent 3 dice per turn on its armed forces. That's not 3 dice on MARVs per turn. That's 3 dice of the actual branches of the armed forces. We didn't, I remember 6 dice being floated as something we should aim for but that got split between MARVs and the rest. To catch up, 6 on our existing projects should bring us up to speed relatively quickly while still letting us spend on everything else.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Frankly this idea that people always want more is just bullshit that capitalism encourages to create profit. People do not in fact want infinite cars, people may not in fact want cars at all given an efficient public transit system.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Accuse all you want. I thought I had 30R going spare, and why not?
That was before I refactored everything, but also before Derpmind came out with what I presume is info from the Discord, which let me dispense with the pessimistic R costs for the Governor I was assuming, and that came out more or less even.
[]Plan Draft One LCI A Turn, Part 1, Draft 3
-[]Infrastructure 5/5 55R
--[] Tidal Power Plants (Phase 2) 0/450 4 dice 40R
--[] Yellow Zone Arcologies (Phase 1) 136/170 1 die 97% 15R
-[]Heavy Industry 5/5 + 1 85R
--[] Fusion Peaker Plants 172/240 1 die 20R 66%
--[] Heavy Rolling Stock Plants 171/250 2 die 20R 55%
--[] North Boston Chip Fabrication (Phase 4) 64/1200 3 die 45R
-[]LCI 4/4 65R
--[] Chemical Precursor Plants 36/200 3 dice 45R 82%
--[] Johannesburg Myomer Macrospinner (phase 1) 73/90 1 dice 20R 100%
-[]Agriculture 3/3 30R
--[] State Operated Breweries 85/125 1 die 10R 91%
--[] Perennial Aquaponics Bays 177/350 2 dice 20R 97%
-[]Tiberium 5/5 105R
--[] Chicago Planned City (Phase 3) 49/320? 4 Tib dice 80R 91%
--[] Improved Tiberium Containment Facilities Development 0/40 1 die 25R 100%
-[]Orbital 3/3 3/3F 60R
--[] GDSS Enterprise (Phase 3) 68/390 3 dice 60R
-[]Services 4/4 20R
--[] Game Development Studios 0/300 4 dice 20R 73%
-[]Military 5/5 + 4? 110R?
--[] Reclaimator Hub RZ-7 North 49/105 1 dice 20R 75%
--[] Super MARV Reclaimator Fleet (YZ-5a) 88/210 1 die 20R 9%
--[] Titan Mark 3 Deployment 0/175 2 dice 20R 26%
--[] Governor Class Cruiser Shipyards 0/200 1 dice 20R 11%
--[] Remote Weapons System Deployment Predator 0/240 1 die 10R
--[] Ablat Plating Deployment (phase 2) 38/200 2 dice 20R 36%
--[] Security Review 1 die
-[]Bueaucracy 2/3
--[]Security Reviews
---[]Military, 2 dice
530/530R, 5/5 free dice.
I kind-of want to swap out Improved Containment and Game Dev for Vaccines? But then I need 5R from somewhere and the only place I can think to spare it from are the Governors or the Enterprise, and we need both.